- Want some ice cream? - Sasha asked when they were walking past the stall.
There were trees and cars growing along the street, some striving upwards, others forward. The sun shone right in Ana's eyes, but she still saw the cross.
- I will.
- Eskimo?
- Yes. Are you a psychic?
- I have a little," Sasha modestly agreed.
He bought ice cream. They went into the park, Sasha sat on the bench. He took an Eskimo, too, and before he started eating, he touched Ani's ice cream like he was crazy.
- For the meeting," he said solemnly.
Sasha soiled his mustache with ice cream. He didn't care. He ate so deliciously, so sweetly... And it seemed to her that she had got a defective ice cream. She felt nothing but cold.
- What news? - Sasha asked.
- Nothing. What about you?
- Under Peter, the peat bogs were burning, there were not enough people, and we were involved in extinguishing them. We arrived there at night. But it didn't matter: everything was on fire, it was light. It was serious, it was the first time I had been there.
- It was great.
- I saved a man. I pulled him out. The man almost suffocated, a civilian, I don't know, maybe a volunteer.
- And how did it feel?
- Well... I liked it.
Anya imagined smoke and the body lying on the ground. Sumatokhu, hanging in the night like a butterfly behind a glass, and a few short minutes separating someone's life from death.
- Why didn't you come last night? - Sasha took Anja's empty stick and threw it in the trash can.
Anya waved away from the wasp. That buzzard came back.
- Wasp... - Anya almost cried out. - I am so afraid of wasps!
- So why? - Sasha repeated, ignoring Anja's fear.
Anya tried to leave. The carriage jammed.
- Please help me!
- She won't do anything to you! Will you answer or not? - Sasha was clearly angry.
Anya did not listen to him. She kept waving away the wasp. Then he knelt down in front of the pram and repeated quietly, gently, looking Ana in the eye:
- She wouldn't do anything to you. Don't be afraid. The main thing is not to be afraid
Anya saw Sasha's face twitch in pain. Wasp bit him in the neck.
- Does it hurt? - When she was confused, Anya asked.
- No.
She leaned over and hugged him.
- I'm sorry," she said
- Forgiven for a long time. Did you... forgive yourself?
- Well... I'm sorry," she said.
- How did you end up in a wheelchair?
Anya was surprised to find out that Sasha had shrunk.
- How did you end up in the pram? - He repeated, this time his voice sounded quieter.
- That was stupid, an accident. She chose the wrong swing at night... - Anya continued to hold Sasha in her arms, avoiding looking at him.
- My mother told me that it happened the day after my departure... - even less, even quieter.
- Yes....
- You thought I was coming back? - from afar.
Anya found out that Sasha deflated and slipped out of his hands... There was no one to answer.
- Anya! - Her grandmother shook her behind her shoulder. - Didn't you lie down, did you?
Anya was sitting at her desk in her room, and there was a phone in front of her.
- How much time? - She asked.
- Morning. What are you going to have for breakfast?
- A pie.
- The pie? - Grandma was surprised.
Anya remembered that she hadn't seen Sasha in a year. He did not pick up the phone, did not answer her messages on the net. And, of course, Sasha did not bring them any pie today.
Anya did not read anything about her injury. Even when she was intentionally thrown "well, very useful links". It seemed to me that if she didn't know something, she wouldn't, and she was fine or would soon be.
However, today Anja suddenly burst out. All day long, she greedily Googled and studied with extreme attention everything that was caught. They wrote that there were exceptions. A small percentage of patients diagnosed with her remained in the wheelchair forever. "My clumsy Piggy..." - sounded in Anja's head like Sasha's voice. With her luck...
- What are you doing here? - Grandma walked into the room in the evening.
Anja's face was swollen with tears.
- I'm hungry," she answered grimly.
- Big problem... Well, now I'll make something, - Tatiana Alexandrovna hastened to the kitchen.
"And who will just get such a treasure? - Anna heard her voice from the corridor. Grandma often said so. "I hear everything! - Usually Anya would answer. It was their joke, my love. But today, Anna wasn't strong enough for her.
- Nobody! Nobody! - She was shaken up. - Nobody! Nobody! NOBODY!
- Quiet! Quiet! - Grandma ran into her room.
To be continued on the next part